In my younger days I spent a lot of time hunting, everything from elk and deer to game birds.

Now, thanks to COVID-19 and age, I have to watch hunting shows like “Meat Eater.” What a life. This guy travels all over the United states hunting. One week he might be in Colorado hunting elk and the next few weeks he might chase giant mule deer bucks in Montana or maybe pheasants in South Dakota.

I have a nephew who went to Wyoming hunting antelope. Others have gone to the Dakotas to hunt pheasants. My son is a horn hunter and has gone to Nevada to hunt mule deer. One time on a cast and blast in the Snake River, while fishing and watching for chukars, he spotted a nice Idaho buck and traded the shotgun for a rifle and headed up after him.

One common theme from the ballistics-impaired on CNN and other left-wing media after the Kyle Rittenhouse verdict was “he crossed state lines with a gun.” All those I mentioned above cross state lines with a gun.

Got an out-of-state tag? Load up the gear and the guns and get going. No checkpoints at the border, because there are no laws about transporting firearms across state lines in the United States. The only borders you have to worry about are ones to the north called Canada and to the south called Mexico. Canadians, being descendants of British loyalists, don’t like handguns, but if you want to spend some big bucks hunting moose, you can go in with a rifle. Mexico doesn’t allow private citizens to own firearms unless you belong to a cartel.

There is one exception that hinders transporting a firearm. If I go to the Veterans Affais hospital I can’t have a firearm, even in my car. Guess they are afraid of those who preserved their freedom with a gun. A class action lawsuit is overdue, especially in light of a Supreme Court decision that said a homeless man could have a gun in his tent.

The left is having a meltdown after Rittenhouse. You have a right to defend your life. What’s next? The right to defend your home or property?

Space limits a lot more of what I have to say. I could cover the 1934 Federal Firearms Act that unconstitutionally banned fully automatics. Since then the rate of fire on any gun is one projectile per trigger pull. Full autos only exist in Hollywood. An exception to this is the smooth bore shotgun, which can hold anywhere from nine to a dozen or so peewee marble sized shot to more than a hundred BB sized shot to many more smaller shot. No rifling in the barrel, untraceable.

So Democrats better get some checkpoints in place and ban the shotgun. Move on. Send some men with guns to confront men with guns. It’s time to really understand gun violence.

Steve Culley

La Grande